Everyone wants to be discovered. It's that improbable stroke of fate-changing luck. All you need is looks, an innate charisma, and chance. When Rosario Dawson was discovered by Larry Clark at age 15 on a Lower East Side stoop, and cast in his controversial classic Kids, it could have been a one-off performance, a flicker of fame. But a year later, Dawson followed up with a role in Spike Lee's He Got Game--and we hate to use the cliche--but a star was born. She gave up aspirations of marine biology and engineering to pursue a full-time acting career. More than a decade later, Dawson is one of Hollywood's most sought-after actresses, with a to-die-for filmography that tipples between big time studio pics and admired indie fair. Most recently, the actress has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in the harrowing social drama Explicit Ills. Dawson plays a destitute single mother, struggling to find the means to care for her asthmatic son. Her role is minimal, but it breaks your heart. Here, the actress discusses why this movie matters, her acting tactics, and a drops little advice for L.A.'s newest resident, Conan O'Brien.

Who do you think needs to see this film and also how do you think a film this small can find an audience? Well it’s interesting, because I’ve known Mark for a really long time and these are issues that are really personal to him, and that’s why he felt the need to make this film and to set it in Philly, and have it be about not just poverty, but the healthcare system, homelessness, and drug abuse. And since he shot the movie to now, it’s changed so much.

How so? The tone of it changed, with what’s going on with the financial crisis, and people are losing their jobs, and how many more have become homeless, and with Obama talking about healthcare reform. These are all very hot topics right now, and they’re hitting people who have never really had to think about it before. Now it’s become everyday news. And that’s what makes the film so important and specific, because it gives a face to these nameless numbers we’re seeing, and statistics we’re looking at every day. It gives us a way of taking some of that stigma away from people who are dealing with poverty and who are dealing with health issues, and allows us to see it on a more personal level. And I think it gives us a very positive way of looking at what we can do about it, and building communities around it, and not shying away from it.

Your role in this film is really small, but the few scenes that you do have are incredibly powerful. I was wondering how you managed to channel that kind of intensity for a character that you don’t really know that well, and that you haven’t spent a lot of time with? Just on the train ride form NY to Philly on that last half hour before I got picked up, I made the decision that I needed to bleach my hair and have inch-and-a-half- long roots, to show, damn, that woman is so poor she cant even afford a bottle of bleach. It was a quirky idea I came up with, but surprisingly everybody seemed okay with it, and of course everybody thought I was nuts after, because I bleached my hair for three days of work.

What kind of emotional tools did you use? It was just a couple of scenes, but here is this woman who has miraculously given birth to this angel of a child, and she can recognize how special he is, and that she’s probably not the right person to take care of him. She doesn’t have the resources, she doesn’t have the education, she doesn’t have the experience. You could see the awe on her face every time she looks at him. And on top of that, he’s got asthma and she doesn’t have the resources to take care of him health wise. And that’s a very helpless feeling for a parent looking at their child, and you can see she’s not a bad person, she’s just maybe a bit misguided, she doesn’t have an education, she doesn’t have the resources or help to move forward, she doesn’t have the confidence in herself. But it was fascinating to try to express what type of person she was. Everything about who I was creating her to be was around him. He was the nucleus in her life, and because Francisco is such an amazing young actor, it really worked, you really get where she’s coming from, you get her fears in regards to him, you get her love for him. It’s striking when she finally tries to transform that frustration and anger intro trying to help other people.

You have a close relationship with your mother. Did you see any of her in that character, or think about her during your portrayal? Oh, very much so, for a lot of different reasons. For one because my mom was 17 when she had me. I definitely grew up with a mom who was very strong-minded, but very human in her mistakes, and was very communicative about that and her struggle being child raising a child. But on top of that, my mom is asthmatic and diabetic, so I’ve witnessed moments when she can’t breathe, and it’s really scary, but luckily we can afford the medication. I take care of her in that way, but I still feel helpless when I’m hoping that this weird medicine inside this plastic inhaler is going to help her. And if it doesn’t, then what? You’re stuck in this whole system that you hope will always work, and that’s just really frustrating to feel like you physically can’t do something in the face of someone in need that you love so much. That’s a frightening thing, so I thought about her a lot when I did this movie. She actually came when we did the march at the end of the movie, she came down and we walked in the march together. I’ve been walking in marches with my mom for a really long time, so it was great.

Dawson as a young mother in Explicit Ills.

You were discovered by Larry Clark on a stoop in the Lower East Side. What would your life be like now if you had left five minutes earlier? Well, I wouldn’t have left because I was actually hanging out there the whole day. But if something had happened, it’s interesting, I don’t know. This industry found me to a large degree, and it’s been a place I’ve grown up in and wrestled with. But I don’t know, I would’ve gone to college, and I was looking into engineering and marine biology, and that’s where my head was at, but maybe I would’ve found theater in school.

Do you ever look at college as something you wish you’d have experienced? Very much so, I’m on the board of VDay, and we went down to a school to see a showing of the Vagina Monologues, and the performances these young women did, they were completely off book, they were just all over the stage, and it was so full-on and amazing. And USC was a school I got accepted to and I didn’t go because I couldn’t afford it, and I think about that, how different my life would’ve been had I left at 18 and moved to California, and just how different LA was in that time. I go to visit downtown now, and it’s getting so much more gentrified. I remember it being very dangerous, and I didn’t have a lot of money, and I was thinking, I’m going to put myself into debt, and I can’t afford to go there. I was like, I have to start working. And because I’d already started working as an actor, and I got cast in He Got Game in my senior year, I said, Okay well, I’ll see what happens. I’m in a Spike Lee movie, so maybe something will happen. And of course, I deferred from going to school, and then I didn’t work for a year. So for that whole year I was like. I made the wrong decision, why am I choosing to be an actor, everyone I know is a struggling artist and they all have real jobs to pay the bills. But I kept plugging away at it, and it’s the only job I’ve ever had. I still have dreams of going to college, but I do appreciate that I’ve been learning a lot about a lot of things, and traveling around the world because of the job I have and I’m really grateful for it. We all find our paths in our different ways, but if I had kids, I would definitely want them to go to college.

As a New Yorker who lives in L.A., what advice can you give to somebody like Conan O Brien, who’s about to make that step? I’m actually so sad that he’s without a show right now, because I think he’s so amazing, and what I’ve really admired in him is that he’s always stuck to his guns.

But he’s moving to the Tonight Show now, taking over Jay Leno’s spot in L.A. Supposedly Jay Leno isn’t giving up his spot.

Jay Leno’s moving to 10, and Conan is going to 11:30. They’re making a time slow for Jay Leno. While I was working, I was just watching and they were saying that he’s not giving up the spot. Well, I think it’s going to be really interesting. He has a family, so he’s going to appreciate having sunshine and being able to be outdoors with them all the time, and I think it’s about finding a place where you can walk, get on a bicycle and be around people. I think that’s always the hardest part. It can be a little boutique-y out here. And he’s pretty fair skinned, so maybe he won’t want to be outside so much. I know I had to get a lot more hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen, because I’m used to just walking in the shade if I have to. But there’s no respite from the sun here. I think it’s great out here. I love the bustle of NY, I feel like I can get a lot more done in a day than I can out here, because everything’s so far away, but I really cant be mad at the sunshine and the palm trees, and the ocean and, the mountains. So that’s why I live in Venice personally, I think it’s really about finding a place that makes you feel like you’re living in California, as opposed to L.A. I don’t feel like I live in L.A., I feel like I live in California.